Charlottesville City Market

I rolled out of bed early this morning in the pursuit of a self-assignment. It was a hazy, humid morning when I was at the Charlottesville City Market between about 7:30 and 8:00am (it was a rather quick visit). The vendor stands were all colorful and inviting. Here are a few of the photos that I came away with:

I really love the photo above with the alternating produce. It was a very eye-catching display!

Hope you enjoyed! Thank you for reading! I do not have anything planned for the immediate future, so it may be a while before I post again. I will have to come up with some more self-assignments to keep myself inspired and busy. There is plenty to discover!

Let me introduce you…

… to the place I have worked for four years now during warm weather. I am one of a few hired hands that help keep a lady’s gardens around her home. She lives nestled in the rolling hills of northern Albemarle County.

We have had a few wonderfully cool mornings this week. The steady rain we had for a while has made it easier to weed. I wish Virginia had a wetter climate, because come mid-summer, the ground will become tough and unforgiving. Today’s work was mostly rediscovering the north edge of the vegetable garden. It took me two hours to weed and edge just one side! Grass is such a nuisance. And so are deer ticks! I have found two on my arm, crawling around, this week. I fear that the mild winter has made for a terrible population of ticks this summer – and in that case, an increased risk of lyme disease.

Even though I have already graduated college, my brain keeps going “I could do this and this and this!” Another degree might be in my future. Virginia Tech has a couple of degrees that interest me that are related to the outdoors/nature/horticulture. There is also a Master Gardener program in my area. I have always had a bit of a green thumb and an affinity for the outdoors – probably inherited from and instilled by my mom’s side of the family.

Okay enough talk, here are the photos!

The photos below were a bit more edited and had their colors manipulated. They actually work really well as desktop wallpapers:

Now for a bit of humor. I would like to think of my work attire as Farm Chic:

Okay the shirt is not very chic, but hey it is an old shirt that works for getting dirty. It was given to me in high school when I was a volunteer at Martha Jefferson Hospital. It actually has poppy flower stains on it from the first summer working on the farm.

FUS Class of 2012 Graduation

Here a few of the best photos from this past Saturday. My brain did not quite connect the calendar date with my friend’s request of photographing graduation (my brain has been rather overloaded lately) so I ended up borrowing a camera to shoot these. Looking back, I wish I had taken more time to choose white balance and aperture.

I love this last photo.

My friend, who graduated, got an iPad for her upcoming business as a present and she has this app called “Paper” (supposedly for her storyboard drawings). I got to play with it some and here is what I have drawn:

Is it really May 14th already?

It has been about a month since my last post – oops. I have been rather busy with moving from town-to-town, travel, work, and so many other things!

One of the hot topics in the news recently has been the release of Instagram to the Android market. I cannot help but have some fun with Instagram on my Android phone now. Here are my experiements:

These first two photos are were taken with my smartphone. They were taken while I was visiting with my grandpa. The next four photos are photographs that I had already taken with a DSLR & SLR and then took into the Instagram program.

The three images below are also smartphone photos that I took this past weekend while visiting Ohio for my friend’s graduation.

I used a Canon DSLR (borrowed) to photograph Maria’s/Liz’s/Kirstin’s graduation from Franciscan University of Steubenville. The best photos will be featured in an upcoming post. I have reviewed them on an iPad, but am waiting on the opportunity to upload them to my computer for processing. It was a challenge to shoot with someone else’s camera in a rushed time frame (I basically shot in Auto most of the time… cringe!) – so I am a bit unsure how much I will like the results. Although I do think I came away with some good images.

And the results are in…

…from two photo shoots I did over the weekend. Although I always post on Facebook and Flickr, my blog is where I answer the questions: Who are the people? Where were we?

The who: Pam and her dog Ottis. I work with Pam currently here in Harrisonburg until my job ends the first week of May and I move back to Charlottesville. She is part of the night shift team. We work together with our other co-workers to provide hungry, tired university students food and coffee. (Perks of working full-time at this job are: meals, free coffee, and friendly customers! Downside: Lots of work for not much pay.)

The where: We met downtown in a little park down the street from the police department to take photos of her with her “grandson” Ottis.

Ohhhh Ottis. Here he was shaking his head.

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The who: My friend, Jessica, who has always been a willing model! We met in college, had at least one class together, and we were also part of the same InterVarsity small group. Since we are both still living in the same area, I enlisted her help yesterday to add more [and better] portraits to my portfolio.

Here is my shameless promotion of her artistic abilities: Jessica Drew Design.

The where: A new community that is under development. The homes seen in these photos are townhouses… but they are practically mini-mansions. Their design/characteristics are very unusual for this area. They remind me of a cross between New England architecture and southern plantation homes. They really are gorgeous and a surprise for the area.

And surprise! A photo of me without my glasses! This is a rare occurrence:

I do not have more portrait sessions lined up for the near future (hey wide open, free schedule, if you are interested!). I have totally forgotten to post flyers around the university to see if anyone needs graduation portraits… oops. I have some portrait sessions this summer, but until then, I am not sure all what I will be posting about.

Hopefully, as my portfolio [somewhat slowly] expands, I can draw in more clients and everything will begin to take off. My move to Charlottesville should be good. The job market there is significantly better [and more competitive] than where I am living now. People ask me if I have work lined up for my move back to Charlottesville. Technically, yes. But officially, no. I will pick up my old summertime job for what it is worth, freelance through my friend’s business, and look for a more steady day job. So yes, I will be busy, but at least two jobs will be irregular.

My tummy is a-rumblin’ since it is lunch time. I am going to wander off and peruse the fridge. Thanks for reading!

 

Charity and Chris

After [somewhat] patiently waiting, I am proud to present further results from the photography workshop I attended in March. Now that I have 2/3 of the photos processed, I am excited to see my portfolio expand and strengthen. Unfortunately, I have not yet processed the film rolls I took at the workshop – those will hopefully be done within the next week or two.

Each photo shown below will link to my Flickr account – you can leave comments on Flickr, Facebook, or WordPress. Make sure to “like” my Facebook page (search for “Sarah Derr Photography”) if you have not already! Below are some of my favorite photos (taken with my Canon 5D Mark II):

Can you believe all of these photos were taken in the manual focus setting? Talk about exercising patience. Whew. I had just gotten the camera from Sonya and although I know how to flip the AF/MF switch on the lens, the setting was turned off in the camera body… and silly me, did not want to bother her while she instructed the other attendees. So after almost a month of awaiting for access to the digital files, my worst fears were chased away once they were received and I did indeed come away with successful photographs. Are these not remarkably better than the earlier photos that I took with my Canon EOS Rebel XSi?? Ah the quality improvement is wonderful! I feel like I gained a whole leap towards becoming a professional photographer.

In other news, I have two portrait sessions scheduled for tomorrow. I will be photographing a friend’s dog and re-photographing my friend Jessica (who is always magically willing to pose for me when I ask her!) with my relatively new Canon 5D Mark II. So there is another blog post to come soon!

And as always, thank you to all who read my posts and continue to encourage me! You all are the best!

Easter Weekend

My parents and I visited with relatives over at my aunt’s house on Saturday. We all ate lots of food and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Here are a couple of photos from Saturday:

Sweat Pea:

Countryside:

Grandpa and Uncle Bruce:

Hostas:

The rest of the weekend, I spent time with my family. Mom and I went to the library book sale in Charlottesville and I picked up a few more books to read. I am currently reading The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. It is a good read even though it is so sad. It is an interesting perspective into the 1960s/70s.

I went to the Easter morning service at church, which had a pretty good sermon by Pastor Lindsey. It is always nice to sit in the sanctuary and people watch and see all the families I have come to know over the years. People sure have grown and changed since my family first joined the church back in the 90′s. And since I have been living away for a few years now, the change is really apparent. And good ol’ Dale sitting where he always does and always cheerfully greeting everyone. I am pretty sure my mom told me he is the architect of the church. He seems to be around 90 years old now. He is always one of the highlights of coming home and going to the Sunday morning services.

I also spent time with my best friend’s family. Lots of shenanigans there, as always. Friday night when I drove home from their place out in the country, it was a clear night with a full moon and stars. The moon was just rising and I listened to Tony Bennett… my drive home was like a movie. I also saw the family Sunday evening. Liz was visiting too. Liz, Maria, and Victoria tried to teach me the card game Munchkin…. I am still not won over (shhh… don’t tell them!). It is supposed to be like you are fighting monsters and such. Some parts of the game of the game were fun, but others just left me thinking that I was wasting my time.

In conclusion, the weekend was beautiful and it was nice to catch up with people that I have not seen lately. My car is turning a sickly shade of green because of all the pollen this year. My car is a light blue and is definitely not meant to look the color of I-am-sick-and-have-green-mucus. Oh it is nasty. But as long as thousands of trees are blooming, I am not going to wash my car. It would be rather futile.

This upcoming weekend should have a couple of photo shoots. I have enlisted a couple of friends to help me build my portraiture portfolio. Let us hope for good weather!